A Tangled Web
by Emmy Award
Summary: Set in the UK and Oz, it's a little bit of everything, with the story of everyone, from Sirius to Harry to Draco to Hermione to Ron to Narcissa to Ludo Bagman to Lucius. And who are Christina, Calista, Isobelle and Ellie? Rated PG-13 for language. R/R


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Summary: Christina Graham is fifteen and annoyed. Not only has her mother, Isobel, left her father, but now she's insisting on dragging her and her two sisters and brother back to Britain where Isobel was born. Christina and her siblings think Isobel has lost her mind, but Isobel has her own issues to sort out, with everyone from Ludo Bagman to Sirius Black. All the old characters, plus new ones. Hopefully slightly more original than other new student fics, but you know, I won't really know until you review.

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Author's Note: This story is kind of a continuation from 'Before They Bloomed' (a marauder story by me, but nowhere near finished) so the beginning of this may not make much sense unless you've read that, but it might not make much sense even if you have read it, but that doesn't really matter, because it will all make sense in due time. Have we had enough of all the making sense stuff? J But really, I like to think that it is a good story, and that you'll think that too.

A Tangled Web ~ Chapter One

New Beginnings

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There was a time, looking through myself

Wanting to pretend

If I escaped I could fill myself

I don't think you can

Been far and wide

But that hole inside

Never really leaves

When I went away, what I really left

Left behind was me

It's telling me

To be on my way home

Home, home

Million miles away

Home, home

Million miles away

I can't stay, I can't stay

Home, home

Million miles away.

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'Million Miles Away' ~ THE OFFSPRING

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January 27th 1995.

Isobel Graham was not a chance-taking person. Although in her youth she might have been considered to be such a person, but with many adventurous, fun, annoying, dangerous, sad and some downright embarrassing experiences under her belt, Isobel had thought her chance-taking days were over. She had thought that maybe it was time to live life to the other extreme; controlled, not recklessly, like she had once been. She had thought that maybe it was time to stop living life dangerously. Time to stop acting on impulse and actually sitting down to think things through.

So you can forgive her for wondering what in all hell she was doing back in Britain, separated from her husband, with her children still in Australia and her absolutely bloody loving it. She suspected it was post-traumatic stress. To be quite honest though, Isobel blamed rather a lot on post-traumatic stress, which wasn't really fair, as a nervous breakdown seemed to cover that category, and by God, Isobel had had a nervous breakdown. In truth, Isobel's current mental state could probably be attributed to the nervous breakdown Isobel had experienced after her father had been poisoned, her best friend Penny had been hit by a car and a former friend she preferred not to name had escaped from prison.

After she'd recovered from the said nervous breakdown, she'd woken up one day the previous November and made three life-changing decisions; to end her marriage, to move back to Britain and to grow her hair back to the way it had been twelve years previously (long, curly, unruly, unmanageable and definitely unpredictable). Within a week, she'd applied for divorce, moved temporarily into a friend's house, quit her job with the Australian Ministry and made enquiries about a job in the Department of Magical Games and Sport within the British Ministry of Magic, where she'd worked from the time she was eighteen to when she was twenty-three and Tamara had been born.

Which was why she was there now, of course. She noticed that the reception area had hardly changed; it was slightly more modern, and instead of magazines from 1979, there were magazines from 1994. And then there was the new receptionist, who was much nicer than Erna, the previous receptionist whom Isobel had severely disliked. 

'Ms Graham?' the said new receptionist, Yasmin, a petite brunette, called. 'Mr Bagman will see you now. Do you need me to take you? Those morons in there do nothing but argue about who's going to win the League this year, they'll probably ignore you.'

Isobel smiled. 'No, I'll be fine. I know my way around here pretty well. Thanks for asking though.'

Yasmin grinned. 'Any time. Oh, bugger!' she said upon noticing an owl flying in the window with a bright red Howler, and hurried over to her desk. 'Good luck!' she called as Isobel stepped into the portal leading to the main offices of the department. She didn't bother telling the girl at the desk where she was going; Yasmin's predictions had proved true and the girl was too busy arguing with a colleague over the possible outcome of the upcoming Wasps-Arrows game.

Before long, she was at the Head Office, where she knocked on the door. 'Ludo?' she called. 'It's Isobel Graham.'

'Come in!' Ludo called exuberantly. 'I've been expecting you.'

Isobel opened the door and found herself being swept up into a huge bear hug by her former housemate. 'Wow, you haven't changed a bit,' she said as he released her. 'Except for you nose. Did you break it or something?'

Ludo touched his nose tenderly. 'Yes, unfortunately. Being a Beater came with unfortunate downside.'

'Lucky I didn't decide to play professionally then, even if I could have,' Isobel said, sitting down. 'I rather like my nose.'

'I bet you could have played professionally. You and Sirius used to beat us to the ground every time,' Ludo said grinning, then realised that talking about Sirius was probably not the best thing to do around Isobel, whose expression had become rather frosty, so he hurried on. 'So, you're here for a job?'

'Well, yes, actually,' Isobel said.

'What have you been doing over the past few years?' he asked. 'Work wise, I mean.'

'Australian Ministry of Magic. Pretty much the same job I had here. Games correspondent, -'

'You used to do that with Lily, when she worked with the Daily Prophet, didn't you?' Ludo interrupted, remembering.

'Yes, but Ludo, I'm trying to tell you - actually don't worry, just look at my resume, all right? I can't be bothered telling you all of it.' She handed the folder she'd brought with her to Ludo. He flicked through it quickly, but Isobel could tell he'd hardly looked at it.

'So when do you want to start?' Ludo asked.

Isobel shook her head. 'How you got to be head of department is beyond me. Haven't you ever heard of something called professionalism?'

Ludo shrugged. 'Anything for an old friend. And besides, I know you can do the job.'

'Yeah?' Isobel questioned.

'You were great at this job when you were here twelve years ago, you'll be even better now, I bet you,' Ludo said. Isobel laughed.

'Ludo, you have _got_ to lose that gambling habit. I thought you would have done so by now,' she reproached.

'Oh, it's not gambling, oh, no,' Ludo said, suddenly looking a little uneasy. 'Just a few bets. Uh, now, when do you want to start?' he said, reverting to the previous subject.

'As soon as possible, I'm bored out of my mind at Mum's,' Isobel said, grinning. 

'What about I owl you and we set up another interview? I need to figure out where I can put you,' Ludo said, leaning back in his chair. 'Just leave your file with me.'

'Thanks Ludo,' Isobel said. 'You're a good man.'

'Just remember you owe me,' Ludo said grinning. 'So how's the family?'

Isobel grimaced. 'All right, I suppose, if you ignore the fact that Christina hates me, Tamara thinks I'm being a child, Zoey ignores me, and Nick won't stop doing things on purpose that he _knows_ piss me off. And they all think I've gone insane.'

'That bad hey?' Ludo asked.

'That bad.' Isobel agreed.

******

That night, she sat in the room at her mother's house that she'd had since she was born, thinking about the meeting she'd had with Ludo that day. It raised mixed feelings, both the pleasure of seeing him again and the pain of all the old memories that had arose. All the old times in the house she'd shared with Ludo, Sarah Fitzpatrick, Emma Watkins, James Potter, and - and Sirius Black. The memories all filled her with pain and pleasure. She missed Remus. She missed Ellie. Sarah, Emma, Calista, she missed them all.

But that wasn't what hurt as much. All of them were still alive, if she'd take the care to find them, they'd be there for her. No, it was the pain of missing Lily and James and the man that Sirius Black had used to be that hurt her the most. Especially Sirius. Even after twelve years, she couldn't forget the pain and the shock of betrayal. 

But she shook all depressing thoughts from her mind. She was being stupid and nostalgic. She had come here to get on with her life, not to wallow in the past.

But maybe one had to step back before charging forward.

******

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six months later … June 27th 1995

Christina Graham's owl, Saffron, came soaring through the window, carrying a letter. One of her friends had finally written to her. Christina felt an incredible wave of sadness and annoyance wash over her. The sadness was for the fact that she missed her friends, especially Heath, who'd been her best friend since they'd been two, and Jayell, who'd been her best friend since they'd started at the Wattleyptus Institute of Magic three and a half years previously. The annoyance was reserved for her mother, whose fault it was that Christina was stuck in dreary, cold England, separated from all her friends and her father, and absolutely bored stiff. She sighed.

Christina's 16-year-old sister, Tamara, came down the stairs in time to hear Christina sigh.

'What's wrong?' she asked. 'Had another fight with Mum?'

'This place sucks,' Christina said gloomily from the couch.

'It's not that bad, really,' Tamara said, plonking onto the couch next to her. 'If Dad was here with us, and it was just a holiday, I'd probably like it.'

'Yeah, but Dad isn't here with us and we're not on a holiday and in two months' time we're starting at a brand new school with none of our friends, and basically everything just stinks as badly as Heath's shoes.' She looked at Tamara with a tragic look on her face. 'You know I even miss the smell of Heath's feet?'

'Christina, you're sick. You need immediate medical attention,' Tamara declared. 'Give me five reasons why this place is bad.'

'OK. One, I miss my friends. Two, I don't want to start at a new school. Three, this place is freezing. This is summer? This is the heat? These people don't know the _meaning_ of the word heat. Four, this street sucks. Privet Drive has to be filled with the most boring people in the universe. I have no idea why Mum made us move here. I don't care if she had to be near some other witch, that Figg lady, these people are so boring. All they ever talk about is their jobs, their children and what they're having for dinner. And five, well, I miss Heath's smelly feet which is really the most disgusting thing I can ever imagine myself doing.' She scrunched up her nose. 'Yuk. But do you understand now?'

'I understood to begin with,' Tamara pointed out. 'Hey, can I smell bacon?'

'I hate bacon,' Christina said moodily, burying her face in one of the cushions on the couch.

'That's a crime, really,' Nick, their fourteen-year-old brother said as he entered the room, toast in hand crunching crumbs all over the floor. 'Bacon is delicious.'

'Yeah, and that's why you're eating toast,' Christina said sarcastically.

Nick shrugged. 'Bacon isn't ready yet. I only had enough time to get a bit of toast before Mum kicked me out of the kitchen and told me to wake you all up.'

Just then, Isobel rushed in. 'Oh God, I'm going to be late … Oh, good, Nick you got them up.'

'We were already up,' Tamara corrected her, but Isobel rushed on as if she hadn't heard.

'Have any of you seen my cloak?' she asked.

'No,' Christina said helpfully. 'Mum, why are you working so much? You never worked this much at the Ministry in Australia.'

'Oh, there's a huge crisis in our department, bloody Ludo did a runner, I told you about that, didn't I?' She furrowed her brow. 'Where in Merlin's name is that bloody cloak?' she asked rummaging in her armchair, then checking on the hooks in the front wall where it should have been, but never was.

'Just use a Summoning charm, Mum,' Tamara said soothingly.

'Ah, good idea,' Isobel said, looking a little embarrassed. _'Accio cloak!'_

The cloak came, from all places, behind the bookcase. Repressing wonderment of how on earth the cloak had got there, Isobel pulled it on and grabbed her briefcase from the coffee table. 'Now there's bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast, and Nick, don't hog all the bacon, _share._'

'Yes Mum,' Nick said, his face the picture of innocence.

Isobel groaned. 'Why on earth do I have trouble believing that?'

'You can have my share Nick,' Christina said. 'I'm having Coco-pops.'

'Cool,' Nick said, and was off to the kitchen to claim his bacon, Christina following him to lay her claim on the Coco-pops and Tamara following her to hopefully salvage some bacon from Nick's greediness.

'Not that anyone really cares, but I should be back by six-thirty,' Isobel said to the empty room.

Tamara stuck her head out the kitchen door. 'See ya Mum.'

'Bye. Be good,' Isobel said before Apparating with a pop.

'Erk. We need more Coco-pops,' Christina said as she emptied the last of the box into her bowl.

'We need more bacon,' Tamara said dryly as she watched Nick eat far more than his share while she ate her eggs.

__

'Oh my God Nick, what have you DONE to your owl?'

Everyone looked at the doorway, waiting for Zoey, Nick's twin, to come and explain what Nick had done this time. Sure enough, ten seconds later, Zoey was at the doorway with something that resembled an owl in shape, but not in colour … In fact, Joseph was nothing like the normal brown he should have been. He was actually a mixture of electric blue and lime green.

'Nick, what have you _done_ to the poor creature?' Zoey demanded. 'This is cruelty to animals!'

'Good morning to you too,' Nick replied, his mouth full of egg. 'And anyway, it's not cruelty to animals, I just thought he needed a change.'

'Nick, Joseph is supposed to be brown,' Christina pointed out, talking as she would talk to a rather dumb child.

'Oh, no shit,' Nick answered. 'What's wrong with a little creativity?'

'Nah, it's not the colours exactly, I think they're kind of cool, it's just that owls aren't supposed to be seen. Brown kind of blends into the environment, but bright blue and lime green?' Christina shook her head. 'You've got no chance.'

'Christina, it's cruelty to animals,' Zoey protested. 'Would you like to look like that? No! And I'm sure Joseph wouldn't want to either.'

Tamara shrugged. 'You never know. He is Nick's owl, after all.'

'Yeah, he is my owl, I can do what I like with him,' Nick said.

'I didn't mean that,' Tamara informed him. 'I meant that since he was your owl he was likely to have your same twisted and weird personality and bad taste in colours.'

'Ooh, just dishing out the compliments there sis,' Nick responded sarcastically.

'Look, that's what an owl _should _look like,' Zoey said, pointing to Christina's owl, Saffron as she flew through the window. Then she looked over at the stove. 'And just _who _has eaten all the bacon?'

'Yay, letter,' Christina said, taking the envelope from Saffron and giving her a bit of bacon stolen from Nick's plate while he wasn't looking. She ripped the letter open, which turned out to be from one of her former classmates, Olivia Desmond.

It said;

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June 28 

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Dear Chris,

I miss you so much! I haven't seen anyone all holidays except Henry, and that isn't exactly fun. Sam's grounded, Jayell's visiting her grandparents and Dom and Lexi are both away, but I don't know where either of them are. I'm seeing Kate, Adam and Angie tomorrow though, in Cavyan. Did you know that Kate's going out with Joel Burton? Caused shockwaves. Edele's furious, even though she won't admit it. Honestly, I don't know what it's going to take to get those two to realise they've got it bad for each other. Clare thinks it's very funny, but then Clare is very evil. But she's grounded as well. Her parents got her report card and hit the roof. You'll probably get a letter from her soon all about the injustice of it all. I got one yesterday. I think she made multiple copies and just changed the name at the top, cos Melita got one too. 

Yeah, well, anyway, I hope you're not bored over there, 'cos I sure am bored here, and I don't want you feeling the same. We go back to school in a week, and I'm really not looking forward to it. Basically, the only good things about school are friends, practical jokes and Quidditch, and then there's all the other stuff, which sucks. Anyway, how are you going? Hopefully, better than your last letter. How are things with your Mum? Are you getting on a bit better now? And how's Nick, Tamara and Zoey? And how are Ebony and Ivory? They are the sweetest cats that ever lived. Hope they're good.

OK, let's move on to the sadder stuff (imagine mournful music in the background). I am going to miss you so much. We all are. I still can't believe that you're not going to turn up at school next week with the rest of us, but you're not 'cos you're on the other side of the world, about to start year 10, while we're going back to just continue our year 9 and to drive all our teachers completely insane. So anyway, I've gotta go, 'cos I really have to do the housework (YUK!) that Mum told me to do before she went out 3 hours ago, and she'll be home in about 15 minutes.

So yeah, bye!!

Love Ollie.

Christina spooned some Coco-pops hurriedly into her mouth before grabbing some parchment off the bench and her cockatoo quill and purple ink from the sideboard and sitting down the write a reply to Olivia, somehow managing to block out Zoey and Nick's fight.

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July 23

Dear Ollie

I am really bored. I can't wait for school to start, even though I don't know anyone. That's how bored I am. Nick and Zoey still have fights every day, and it's starting to drive Mum nuts, not to mention Tamara and me. Right now, they're fighting about the last piece of bacon. Mum's still pissing me off big-time, and a day without us fighting is a very rare day indeed. Lucky I don't see her much as she's working all the time as a result of the head of her department doing a runner. She was his spokeswoman or something like that, so she's in the office all the time. But wait, this letter is not meant to be about my mum. It's meant to be about me. So what have I been doing?

OK. Yesterday we went to Auntie Jean and Grandma's house, and Jean was like 'Oh my GOD, look how much you've GROWN!' like all adults do when they haven't seen you for a couple of months, but in Jean's case it was years so we didn't mind as much as we would have under normal circumstances. Grandma was pretty quiet, but you could tell she was really glad we were there, which was also understandable, cos the last time we saw them was just before I started school, and my cousin Katie was there with my mum's sister Anna and her friend Lee. Katie and Lee were in their 3rd year, um what's that in Australian years? Oh yeah Year 8. Well anyway, they scared the hell out of me about school. They told me that all teachers were mean and were nothing like Muggle primary school teachers, cos they couldn't turn you into rats when you misbehaved. I was so freaked out after that, and I didn't want to go. Lee also scared the hell out of Zoey and Tamara with this giant tarantula that he had then.

Damn, I've gotten side-tracked again. OK, back to Grandma's. Well, we had lunch, blah, blah, blah, talked about school, blah, blah, blah, and - well we talked about a lot of stuff, some of it pretty scary.

You see, there's this big bad wizard over here called Lord Voldemort. I have a feeling we learnt about him a long time ago, probably in a History of Magic lesson when we were asleep, even though we looked awake (we were rather good at that, weren't we? Sigh). Well, to cut a long story short, he lost his powers and regained them about a month ago, and to top it all off, the Minister for Magic over here, Cornelius Fudge, refuses to believe that Voldemort could possibly have risen again, and is even choosing to ignore the Death Mark (Voldie's-oops, You-Know-Who's sign) popping up. Needless to say, Mum is furious. Jean and Grandma started talking about it, and Mum got involved and yelled for about ten minutes straight about what an idiot he was, and went on about how she knew _Cornelius was going to stuff up the job, but did anyone listen? No! Grandma hit her with a silencing charm, and told her to calm down. It was a bit weird, I've never ever seen Mum fly off the handle like that before (except for when she's fighting with me, maybe) but Grandma acted like it was normal._

Anyway, after Mum calmed down, Grandma decided that it was time to give me my birthday present from a month ago. It was a gorgeous pearl choker and pearl drop earrings; both things family heirlooms. Zoey and Tamara are both very jealous. They shouldn't worry, though, Grandma's jewellery collection is huge, about a zillion pieces passed down from generation to generation. It's awesome. 

Anyway, I'd better go, Zoey and Nick are now screeching about Nick's owl, which he dyed some really weird colours as well as fighting over the bacon, which typically, Nick hogged, and I'm guessing that Tamara will be on the verge of a nervous breakdown trying to calm them down.

Miss you

Love Christina

Christina folded up the letter and attached it to Saffron's foot. She felt strange as she watched her owl fly out the window, sort of like a sign that she was never going back, only forwards.

**__**

DISCLAIMER: Christina, Zoey, Nick, Tamara, Robert and Isobel Graham, Yasmin Kennedy, Erna Puddifoot, Penny Ryder/Reid, Elizabeth Parker, Sarah Fitzpatrick/Rowan, Calista Browning, Emma Watkins, Heath Reid, Jayell Austin, Olivia and Henry Desmond, Adam and Kate Jenson, Angela Witty, Dominique Clarke, Alexis Walker, Samantha O'Connell, Clare Webster, Edele Parkinson, Joel Burton, Pandora Harris (Grandma), and Jean Stebbins (Auntie Jean) belong to me. Don't worry if you're not sure who all these characters are. If someone only got a mention they made it into here, so you may have missed them entirely. Only a few of them play a big role in the story, though most of them are mentioned again.

The Wattleyptus Institute of Magic (WIM) is my conception of what Australian wizarding school would be like. Cavyan is the magical town that the WIM is near. It means nothing that I know of, I made it up.

Everything you recognise from the Harry Potter Books is obviously not by me and I am making no pretence of saying that they are. The song 'Million Miles Away' is by the Offspring. I'm pretty sure that's everything, and if I've left anything out, well, I didn't mean to. Toodles! J 


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